The Dude is Detective Phillip Marlowe, and the Big Lebowski is crime novelist Raymond Chandler’s the Big Sleep. Watch the 1946 film noir version of the Big Sleep with Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall. It’s exactly the same plot line, except there’s no bowling. Philip Marlowe, who was the protagonist in many of Chandler’s short stories and novels, who was played in film by Robert Mitchum, Elliot Gould, James Garner, Danny Glover, my favorite Dick Powell, and others, was laid back and cynical like the Dude. Marlowe never had a regular love interest and lived hand to mouth, like the Dude. Marlowe was going to get to the bottom of the case no matter what, like the Dude.

I saw The Big Lebowski in a theater the day it came out, and realized that it was The Big Sleep during the scene when the inept VW Bug driving detective Defino tells the Dude that he is a “brother shamus”. I all could think of was what geniuses the Coens were. By the way, don’t underestimate the number of guys that identify more with Walter than with the Dude.